The Dress Shirt Base

The dress shirt base is comprised of two large pieces of fabric, front and back, that is sewn
together as the shirt body. The base can be customized in two areas, back pleats and bottom
cut. The back pleats are the construction of folds formed by doubling fabric back upon itself.
The bottom cut is the shirttail style that forms the dress shirt ending.

The back pleats or back cut of a base can have three distinctive styles, no pleats,
centre pleats, or side pleats. This is usually done where the
shirt yoke meets with the back part of the
base piece. The purpose of pleating is to give a fuller shape to the back, which is particularly
advantegeous for men with smaller frames looking to create added body. Generally, center pleats
are more popular on American-Made Dress Shirts and side pleats are more common on British-Made
Dress Shirts. While some say pleats purely add style, others claim they provide
more movement.

The bottom cut or shirttail style is the form that the ending part of the base takes. There
are two types bottom cuts, square and tail. While the tail cut can be used for both tucked
dress shirts and untucked dress shirts, the square cut doesn't look as good for untucked
dress shirts but allows for
better tucking. If you're only going to wear the dress shirt
tucked, then we recommend the square cut. If you're planning on wearing the dress shirt
untucked at times, then we recommend the tail cut.
Dress Shirt Base: Design Yours.